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By Slade Sohmer on March 7, 2013

With great power comes great responsibility … not to be a juvenile prick.

Pro-tip: If you’re a councilman with access to the Washington, Pennsylvania, city-wide emergency alert system, it’s best to refrain from using this power to tell your constituents that your high school buddy Bryan “is gay.”

The local Observer-Reporter reports that Mayor Brenda Davis chided Councilman Matt Staniszewski during Monday’s City Council agenda meeting. The councilman’s excuse is straight out of the Preteen Playbook:

“This is inappropriate for the city of Washington,” she said, noting an individual who had signed up to receive such alerts was offended and contacted the city.

Staniszewski said the comment referred to a college friend, but added it would be wrong to assume he was attaching an insulting connotation to the word, “when we all know that the word means happy.”

Staniszewski is sticking to his guns, releasing this absurd statement about the incident: “It’s offensive and unprofessional for the mayor to automatically assume one definition of the word when there are multiple definitions.”

Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night had some fun with “one of my favorite stories in a while,” closing the segment with a well-executed sketch: